La Symphonie Pastorale was written in 1919. The copy that I own also contained a second story, Isabelle which complemented the original story perfectly. Both were suffused with longing, loss and tragic disappointment but both were beautifully written (and translated) despite the darkness of their themes.

The title story is about a pastor who, upon attending the bedside of a dying woman, discovers her blind daughter – illiterate, unsocialised and terrified cowering nearby. He brings the girl home, to the resentment of his wife, and proceeds to care for her, educate her and bring her up surrounded by his cocoon of moral teachings and beliefs. Gertrude, despite her blindness, learns to ‘see’ through his teaching and particularly through her introduction to music. Time passes, the pastor’s wife grows ever more angry, and slowly but surely, the feelings of the pastor shift from their paternal beginnings.

The tragedy occurs when Gertrude is finally given back her sight through an operation and discovers that the world isn’t as beautiful as she had imagined, and also discovers the feelings of the pastor towards her (unreciprocated) and the loss of the man she had loved – Jacques, the pastor’s son, who had been sent away by his father so he didn’t have to share Gertrude’s affection. Whether romantic affectation or not, there was really no other ending to this story than the one posited – the girl commits suicide, leaving everyone lost, broken and irrepairably betrayed.

Isabelle, written some years before La Symphonie Pastorale also tells the story of longing and disappointment when that longing is finally fulfilled. In this story, the protagonist falls in love with a picture of an absent daughter in a house in which he is staying. His longing for her grows and grows until he finally meets her, and realises that she is human, imperfect and less than the ideal he had built of her. In some ways I found this story even more tragic than the first – not because of the loss felt by the young man but because the object of his affection was never ever going to live up to his ideal. In such a situation, there is only ever going to be unhappiness.

Both stories exquisitely examined human emotion and the dire trouble humans find themselves in when the emotions of two people are not parallel. All of Gide’s characters were in this uncomfortable place – whether it was the pastor’s love, Jacques longing or the pastor’s wife’s sense of rejection. The author paints a cruel world where each person is separate from all others, and no matter how hard they wish or try, they cannot form a connection. And the fault for this is not with the other person – it is with their own emotions, selfishness and desires. 

Rating: 8/10
Publisher: Penguin Books
Year: 1963
Date Finished:  March 2009
Pages: 170